Red scorched Elsie’s cheeks at the word “stole.” Kate rejoiced at that. She would make it scorch even redder. “You are no better than a thief, to hunt through my things, to read my letters. To steal, to steal, to steal!”
Even as Kate stormed she knew, deep where knowing still had a foothold below the surface of her anger, that her greatest fury was at herself—fury that there had been such a letter for Elsie to read at all, that she had ever written the Hart boys as she had written them. But in spite of that knowing she seemed to have no control over the superficial Kate, the raging, furious Kate.
“You thief! You’re no better than a thief! Give me back my key.”
But Elsie’s response to this attack surprised Kate into a little calmness. She stood up, clenching her hands, and facing her accuser.
“Well, if I am a thief I am proud of it, proud, proud. So there! If you think I’m ashamed of it you’re wrong! Call me thief all you like. I like to be called thief. I like it. I am one. I’ve got your old key. I’ll give it to you to-night when we come up to bed, not before. I meant to all along. Then the orchard house will be yours, all yours. Go live in it! I won’t care. There’s the gong.”
But in spite of Kate’s growth in calmness her determination remained. “Aunt Katherine gave the key to me,” she said. “It belongs to me. Give it back this instant.”
“If I won’t, what will you do?”
Kate considered. “If you won’t, I’ll go right out there after dinner and climb in at a window and explore the whole house. I’ll discover your blessed secret whatever it is and not even wait till morning. That’s what I’ll do.”
Elsie stood looking at her. But something changed in her eyes. For a flash, or was it only Kate’s wild imagining, a comrade looked out through those clouded windows, making them in that instant clear as day, and then vanished. Now Kate knew what would have been the expression on the face of the fairy in the wood that June day, eight years ago, if she had not flashed back into the sunlight too quickly for her to catch it. It would have been this sky-clear look of the golden comrade.
“Why don’t you say you’ll tell Aunt Katherine?”